We sat down at a Nakseongdae restaurant, mixing soju with beer. Here he was, Simon, cynical, nonchalant, self-deprecatingly funny, jaded, but gaze soft. He said before Seoul he was living in Pyongyang, but didn’t say much about it. Our conversation bounced, light-hearted, skittish, like a pirouetting bird. "Hey," I said. "Can you stop for a second?" He paused and looked at me as if I would rush out the next second. "Give me your hands." Our hands landed besides plates, tureens and glasses, warm. I then asked if he knew the Hanja characters of Nakseongdae mean “falling star hill.”
Peixuan Xie mostly researches feminist peace and occasionally writes other things.